Tetsunari Iida (, ''Iida Tetsunari''; born 1959,
Yamaguchi Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 Square kilometre, km2 (2,359 Square mile, sq mi). Y ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
) is director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Japan. Following the
Fukushima nuclear disaster
The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...
, he is calling for a decrease in Japan's reliance on
nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
and an increase in
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
use.
Iida started his career as a nuclear engineer, but he quit in 1992, and went to study renewable energy in Sweden. In September 2011, Iida launched the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, which is backed by ¥1 billion (US$13 million) from Japan's richest man,
Masayoshi Son.
Solar power in Japan has been expanding since the late 1990s. The country is a leading manufacturer of
photovoltaics
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially us ...
(PV) and a large installer of domestic
PV systems with most of them grid connected.
Biography
Iida started his career as a nuclear engineer, but he quit in 1992, and went to study renewable energy in Sweden. When he returned to Japan in 1998, he formed the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies. Since then he has set up several green mutual funds.
In September 2011, Iida launched the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, which is backed by ¥1 billion (US$13 million) from Japan's richest man,
Masayoshi Son. The foundation will bring together some 100 experts from around the world to analyse obstacles to
implementing renewable energy, and offer policy recommendations to the new Japanese government.
See also
*
Eric Martinot
*
Amory Lovins
*
Renewable energy commercialization
References
External links
Institute for Sustainable Energy PoliciesJapanese & English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iida, Tetsunari
Living people
Japanese environmentalists
Energy engineers
People from Yamaguchi Prefecture
Renewable energy commercialization
1959 births
Solar power in Japan